Soft and Fair
by Karis Artemisia Judith
Summary: Anna realizes that her figure has changed since her wedding day, and it takes a certain amount of effort for Kristoff to convince her that she's always beautiful.


Anna stared at herself in the mirror, wide-eyed. The dressmaker had been right—she was getting fat. And it was all Kristoff's fault.

For most of her life, ever since Elsa had pulled away from her, Anna had never eaten much. Breakfast was something that stood between her and the rest of the day, and she avoided it as much as possible. Lunch meant stopping the activities she had worked so hard to find for herself—she would stop climbing trees or making paper animals or exploring the attics long enough to eat a sandwich, if Gerda chased her down to give one to her, but she didn't stop for long. And dinner…dinner was the worst, especially after her parents were gone. It was too hard to be in the lonely dining room and force herself to sit still long enough to finish a whole plate of anything. She'd gone every night, because Elsa always ate in her room and Anna thought it would hurt the staff's feelings if nobody went down, but the silence was always oppressive. Sometimes she even excused herself before dessert, just to get away from the long table with its row of empty chairs. Not often, though. Only on days when the dessert was vanilla cake. For chocolate cake, Anna could endure. But neither the chocolate cake (with second helpings) or the handfuls of bon-bons that she stole from the pantry did much to put meat on her bones, because they just sent her bouncing through the halls of the castle like a small comet fueled with sugar.

Anna hadn't eaten a proper meal in years when she met Kristoff. And then everything in her world changed, just as abruptly as Elsa's powers had thawed the winter into summer. Suddenly meal times meant sitting at a table with the two people she loved most, Elsa and Kristoff, and Anna wanted them to last for hours. She kept each course in front of her and slowly ate every bite to make the meal last longer. But that wasn't what had made her fat. That was definitely Kristoff's fault.

It took nearly a year for Kristoff to propose to her. He didn't make any secret at all of the fact that he meant to, but he didn't actually do it until the day he took Anna up the mountain and blindfolded her in the middle of a snowy nowhere.

"Okay," she'd said teasingly, "if this is a sexy blindfold, then I have to tell you that it's a bit cold out here…"

"It's not a—I mean, it could—ah, do you want a sexy blindfold?"

Anna felt around, finding Kristoff's arm and then his face, stroking her fingers over his cheeks, imagining the way he was probably blushing. "Maybe sometime," she murmured. "But if this isn't a sexy blindfold, what is it?"

"I have something to show you." She heard him step out of the sled, his boots crunching on the snow, and he scooped her up to carry her.

"You don't have to carry me the whole way—" Anna began.

"I don't want you to trip with your blindfold on," he said. "Besides, you don't weigh a thing. And it's not far, it's just through these trees."

Soon he was setting her on her feet, and she heard him take a deep, anxious breath before he slipped the blindfold off so that she could see…a house. A pretty little wooden cottage, with a sloping roof and carved shutters and a bright green door. Anna stared at it in silence for a long time and Kristoff began to rub the back of his head nervously.

"Do you…do you like it? I mean, I know you're used to the castle, and it's not very big, but it…I mean, I just…"

"Is it…is it for me?" Anna finally squeaked.

"Yeah. For you. For, um, us." Kristoff was blushing again but Anna's shining eyes were very reassuring. "Look, I know it doesn't really make sense because you don't need a house, but I remembered from when I was a kid that when a man wants to get married he should have a house to give his wife, and if he doesn't have one he has to build one before he—"

"You built this? For me?"

"Yeah, I—" Kristoff was cut off by Anna launching herself at him like a cannonball, wrapping her arms around him.

"It's beautiful. It's the most beautiful house in the world."

He hugged her tightly, pressing his nose into her hair. "So, will you…will you marry me?" he asked quietly.

"Of course I will." Anna yanked on his tunic until he bent down where she could kiss him. Then she drew back with a little frown. "But, Kristoff…I…It's beautiful, but Elsa—I don't want her to be alone—"

"I know, I know," he said hastily. "I don't expect us to stay out here all the time, I mean we'll still live at the castle with Elsa, but…I'll have to come out to harvest ice, sometimes for days, and you can come with me, if you want. And maybe sometimes…when we want to be, um, alone…"

Anna grinned and tugged on his arm, practically bouncing up and down. "Show me the inside!" she said. "I want to try out this being alone thing." And she had all but dragged him through the green door into her new house. Their house.

That had definitely been the start of the problem. Being alone in the snug little house, with no servants, meant that someone had to cook, and Anna didn't know how. Fortunately Kristoff did, and he seemed to love having someone to cook for, which Anna found unbelievably adorable. He would sit and completely ignore his own plate in favor of watching Anna eat, with that precious, goofy expression on his face when she told him how good it was. And the things he made for her were delicious—rich foods make with generous cream and butter, foods that stuck heartily to the ribs and left Anna ready to curl up in front of the fire and sleep like a hibernating bear.

And that, Anna decided, was the problem itself. They'd been going to the cottage a lot that summer, so that Kristoff could harvest ice during the day and the two of them could enjoy being alone at night. With no one in earshot. For miles. And it had been amazing. But it had meant a lot of Kristoff cooking, and a lot of Anna eating what Kristoff cooked, and then a whole lot of Anna napping by the fire so that she would be full of energy when Kristoff got home in the evening to keep her awake all night. And the end result was that her hips and rear had gotten all round and…and squishy. And her arms had gotten plump. And her waist had gotten thicker.

The more Anna stared at herself in the mirror, the worse it seemed to get. She looked so…big. She hadn't really noticed, because she'd been getting new clothes anyway for the new Autumn season, and Kristoff hadn't said anything…but he'd been gone a lot, organizing the end of the ice harvesting and making sure all of the men had places to stay during the winter and enough savings or work to get by. Maybe he hadn't noticed either. Maybe he had and he was pretending not to notice. Anna bit her lip anxiously, remembering the dressmaker's comment—the woman had done her best to be tactful, really she had, and when Anna had casually said that she wouldn't need that many new dresses because she could wear some of her old ones her answer had been a gentle "Well, my dear, I could certainly let them out if they're your particular favorites, but I think you'll be most comfortable in a lovely new dress. And you're newly married, you should have new things this year to celebrate." Anna had been the one to keep bringing up the subject until the poor dressmaker had been forced to explain how much the princess's measurements had altered, and even then she had been quick to point out that young wives often gained a little more fullness once the honeymoon was over.

That was the phrase that stuck in Anna's head…the honeymoon was over. She'd heard other women say things like that, not directly to her, but to each other—"Just wait until the honeymoon is over," they'd say. "Then we'll see." Apparently the honeymoon ending was something dire. And the fact that she had gotten, well, chubby, meant that it definitely was over. What if, between the two, it meant that Kristoff wouldn't…well, wouldn't want her as much? The thought made Anna bite her lip so hard that it stung. She didn't think Kristoff would stop loving her, absolutely not…but what if he didn't want to spend so much time with her being, well, alone? That would be almost as bad. She had gone nearly crazy before they were married, she had been so impatient for the privacy to kiss him, to touch him more often than hiding in the stables or sneaking off to the attic had allowed. When he was gone overnight she would toss and turn restlessly until she gave in and ran her hands over herself, imagining that they were his.

Anna turned away from the mirror and flopped face down on the bed with a groan. She was already terrible at being all the things a princess should be—she wasn't graceful, she wasn't elegant, she wasn't tidy, she never had a handkerchief, she laughed at inappropriate times instead of being decorous and solemn, and now she didn't even look like a princess should. The freckles had been bad enough, but at least Elsa some too, even if hers were few and pale, and Kristoff did seem to like Anna's freckles, considering how much time he'd spent kissing all of them, even the ones…well, the memory made Anna squirm, almost distracting her from the current catastrophe, until she heard the door opening.

Making a hasty decision that might, on further reflection, have been misguided, Anna seized the coverlet of the bed and rolled herself up in it until she tumbled off the far edge in a cocoon of quilted cotton. Definitely a misguided decision, she thought, blushing furiously as her husband's boots came into view.

"Anna? Are you all right?"

"Fine! Fine, I'm fine. That wasn't supposed to happen quite like that." She peeked up at his face. Kristoff was looking at her with that sweet, amused expression that made her blush all the way down her body. He lowered himself down to the carpet with a quiet grunt and leaned over her on one arm.

"That wasn't exactly the welcome home I was expecting," he murmured, bending to kiss her. Anna groaned—her arms were trapped in the blanket, so she couldn't tangle her fingers in his hair. The blanket had definitely, definitely been a misguided decision. Kristoff responded to the sound with a chuckle, moving his lips from hers to brush her chin, and then to nuzzle down her neck to her shoulder. "Why, princess," he said, his breath warm on her skin, "I don't believe you're wearing anything under this blanket."

"I'm…not," Anna whispered, squirming as he kissed back up her neck to her ear. Then he leaned back, grinning, and reached for the edge of the coverlet, his tongue brushing over his lip as he looked down at Anna as if she were a chocolate he was about to unwrap. But with the first tug, Anna's self consciousness flared up to fill her mind. "Wait!"

He stopped at once, the way he always did if she asked, and looked at her with concern. "What's wrong? Did I-"

"No! Nothing's wrong," Anna said hastily. "I just…could we put the candles out?"

"If that's what you want," he said slowly. "But…I'd rather let them burn." He stroked his thumb across her jaw. "I like to be able to see you."

"I do want, I mean—this time, I think it would be better with the candles out."

"All right." Kristoff got up to extinguish the candles, cupping a hand behind each flame and blowing it out with a gentle breath. He always blews the candles out. Once he'd snuffed a candle with his fingertips, and as the light had gone out he'd seen Anna wince. He didn't ask questions, but he never did it again.

With the room lit only by moonlight and firelight, Anna was dismayed at how clearly she could still see, and she knew that Kristoff had better vision in the dark than she did. "Could you close the curtains, too?" She saw his brow crease with a slight frown as the moonlight fell across his face, but he drew the heavy fabric over the window and came back to crouch beside her.

"All right, Anna, what's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong, I just…" she bit her lip. There was still too much light, and even though Kristoff was tracing his fingertips over her collarbone idly her mind was full of the horrible conviction that if he got a good look at her the amorous spark she could still make out in his eyes would go out. The image was enough that when he reached for the blanket again she scooted away, undulating like a caterpillar. Good job, Anna, she thought, this is definitely getting sexier by the minute. At this rate him seeing you will be the last of your worries. "Maybe," she said desperately, "we should put the fire out. It's awfully stuffy in here."

Kristoff sat back on the floor with a sigh, drawing his knees up so that he could rest his arms on them. "No."

"No?"

"No," he said firmly. "Anna, tell me what's wrong. Why don't you want me to look at you? Did something happen? Did I do something?"

Anna let her head thump against the carpet with a sigh. "It isn't you, of course not! You haven't done anything. It's me that's all wrong."

"Hey." He stretched out beside her on the floor, lifting her head so that he could tuck his arm beneath her. "Anna, if you don't want to…to do anything, because you don't feel well, or…or any reason, you can just tell me. It's okay, it's always okay. You don't have to work so hard coming up with diversions."

"It's not that," Anna said quickly, wriggling her swaddled body closer to his. "It's not that I don't want to do…things, I definitely want that. I'm just…scared. That you won't."

"What? Anna…" He ran his fingertips through her bangs, stroked them down her cheek and neck to tease at the edge of the blanket. "I always want you."

"But—ugh." Anna rolled so that she could bury her face in his shoulder, muffling her embarrassed voice. "But I don't look the same as I used to."

He blinked. "Just how much can you change in two days?"

"It's taken longer than two days, but I didn't notice until today," she mumbled. "And you hadn't said anything so I thought maybe you hadn't noticed either. I'm…I got…I'm all chubby."

"That's what this is about?" Kristoff asked, startled. "Why is that such a problem? I mean, you still ran up all three flights of stairs the other day, andI can still pick you up." He scooped her up to demonstrate, blanket and all, and got to his feet, bouncing her gently in his arms. "See? No trouble. So what's the matter?"

"I look all wrong," Anna said. Her husband looked down at her seriously, frowning slightly. Then he set her gently on the bed and went to the fireplace. He lit a taper and stood to carefully apply the flame to each of the candles he'd extinguished earlier before bringing the candelabra closer, setting it on the bedside table where the light could fall across the bed. He kicked his boots off and climbed up beside his swaddled wife, settling his back against the headboard.

"Okay," he said finally. "Tell me what happened. Did somebody say something awful to you?"

"No! no, she was trying to be nice, she really was!" And the whole story about the dressmaker and the outgrown dresses and the measurementsand the honeymoon being over came tumbling out in a rush. "And…" Anna fumbled. "I was worried that when you noticed I looked different, you wouldn't like…you wouldn't want…"

"Anna." He pulled her into his lap, wrapping his arms around her and nuzzling his face into her hair. "Anna, I am always going to want you."

"But…" The insecurity that was wrapped so tightly around Anna's heart was not letting go. "But princesses are supposed to be beautiful," she muttered.

"You are."

"Not the way I'm supposed to be!"

Kristoff sighed, holding her tighter. The way her shoulders were hunching up and the anxious way she was biting her lip dug at his heart. "Just what do you think you're supposed to look like?"

"Well…princesses are supposed to be pale. And tall. And slender and graceful and regal, and to look elegant all the time—"

"Anna, you know you're just describing your sister?" he asked quietly.

"Well…yeah, I guess."

"And you really think that there's something wrong with you, because you don't look like her?"

"Well, no, I mean…" The blanket had come loose enough that Anna could get her arms out, and she twisted her fingers together nervously. "I always knew I wasn't going to be beautiful like Elsa, and that was mostly okay, even though I had freckles and I fall down all the time and my hair is a weird color, but now I'm ugly and dumpy too—"

"Hey. Stop that."

She blinked up at him. "What?"

"Stop using mean words to talk about yourself. If someone else said stuff like that about you, I'd knock them down."

"They aren't mean, they're just…" She shrugged awkwardly. "It's all true. What words am I supposed to use?"

"None of that is true." He lifted her off his lap and swung her around so that she was sitting propped up against the pillows and he could straddle her hips, looking down at her. "Anna…." Kristoff searched for words. He wasn't the best at expressing his feelings with words, especially not feelings like the ones he had for Anna. They were too big. They took up too much of his heart to fit into words. It was a lot easier for him to show her what he felt with actions, with touches. But sometimes Anna needed words. He smoothed his hands over her shoulders and down her arms, thinking.

"Your hair isn't a weird color," he said finally. "It's the same color as carrots. Carrots are good." Not the smoothest opening, but her mouth crooked a bit with a smile. It was a start.

"I like it when you trip sometimes," he admitted. That earned him a raised eyebrow. "I like to catch you." There it was, the real smile that made her nose scrunch up like a rabbit. Kristoff grinned with relief and bent over to kiss that nose, gently tugging the blanket down from her chest.

"I like your freckles. They make me think of the sky at night. You know when people travel they find the constellations in the stars for directions?" He rubbed his nose against her cheek, and kissed his way across the sprinkle of freckles. "This constellation leads me here—" he moved his lips to her shoulder, nipping gently across it to her collarbone. "And this constellation points me here…" Anna sighed as his lips brushed across the upper curve of her breast, then the sigh turned to a frustrated huff as he lifted his face to look at her instead of following the course that would have brought him to the hardened peak. "Freckles are good," he told her seriously, his calloused hand lifted to cradle and caress what his mouth had neglected.

"Mm," Anna hummed, sinking back against the pillow. "Okay, freckles are good."

"And the rest of you…" Kristoff pulled the blanket the rest of the way off, and felt his mouth go dry, the way it always did when he looked at her. "The rest of you is good too," he said huskily. Anna blushed, biting her lip anxiously again. Her hand moved as if she wanted to tug the blanket back up, but he caught her wrist and gently pinned it against the pillows. "Anna, let me look at you. You're beautiful."

"But—"

"Listen," he said, stopping her negative gesture by capturing that hand as well and trapping it with the other above her head. "Do you want to know what words I think are true about you?"

"What words?" she whispered. With the blanket pulled away, Anna was suddenly very aware that she was naked and that Kristoff above her was still fully clothed. It made her feel vulnerable, but it also made a frisson go up her spine.

"Soft." He stroked his hand down her arm, smoothing the rough fingers over her side. "So soft, and…yielding. And warm. You know that you don't get cold so easily anymore?"

"I have you to warm me up," she murmured, her eyes half closed.

"But even before I'd wake up to find you shivering next to me. That doesn't happen as much now. You're always so warm. And…" Kristoff paused, his hand stroking the fleshy curve of her hip, searching for a way to describe how much he liked its fullness, how much safer it felt to grip her, how satisfying it was to dig his fingers into her skin for purchase. All the words he tried in his head felt too coarse, too vulgar for this. They were words that he should remember to say into her ear later, perhaps, but they weren't the right words for this moment. Finally he said "I like…I like being able to hold you without being so afraid of breaking you."

She lifted her head from the pillow to stare at him. "What do you mean?"

He kept running his hand down her side, over her hip, sometimes brushing his thumb over the underside of her breast. "At first…you seemed so fragile. I mean, I knew that you were strong, had ever since I watched you hike up that mountain, but when I could see your ribs, your shoulder blades…it was different. As if you might snap. I was terrified of hurting you—I was sure that if I held you too hard I would break a rib, or your arm, or something. It felt like you might slip through my fingers, somehow. But now," his hand went again to her hip, tightening, and he felt her attention shifting, focusing on that touch. "Now it's different. I feel like I can hold on to you. I'm not so worried that your wrist will snap in my hands." The fingers holding her wrists trapped tightened in illustration, and Anna took a deep breath.

"Oh. I thought…I didn't know that you wanted…I thought it was just me," she said.

He grinned crookedly. "Seriously? What do you think that time last week was all about?" He'd finally given into the desire to pin her hands behind her back, using his grip on her wrists to hold her still while he'd…

"I thought you were humoring me, because I kept bringing up the rope idea…."

"Mmm." He bent down to kiss her, slowly, nipping at her bottom lip as he pulled away. Kristoff sat back on his heels, letting go of her wrists and resting his hands on his thighs. His eyes stroked over her as he fingers had done, his soft, curvy, delicious Anna, and then he looked up into her face, hoping she could see a reflection of what he saw in his expression, wondering if she could feel the heat that she sent coursing through him even through his clothes.

"You're beautiful," he told her softly. "Do you believe me?"

She nodded.

"Good," he said, and slid his hands over her again, bending down to kiss her.

"I think," Anna said, in between kisses, "that's it's about—mm—about time you took off some of these clothes. You're wearing too many clothes."

Kristoff chuckled and leaned back, tugging the sash from his waist, but then he paused, despite Anna's impatient tugs on the hem of his tunic. He caught her hands. "Wait," he said, and leaned down to give her a slow kiss, murmuring against her lips. "I want to try something." He slipped the strip of brightly woven fabric around her eyes, knotting it carefully to avoid catching her hair. Kristoff watched her carefully as he settled the blindfold in place, and was rewarded by the broad smile that spread over her flushed face.

Anna's fingers found his hands as he finished the knot, traced their way up his wrists and arms to find his shoulder and stroke into his hair. "So," she asked, "is this a sexy blindfold, or am I going to get a surprise?"

"Both," he promised.


End file.
